Loomio
Wed 15 Jul 2020 7:48AM

Mana Haven - Meshnets

BBA Bob Beth AHA-NZ Public Seen by 15

Krusheska Quiros inspired me to consider the social equity benefits of meshnets. We met while Krusheska was attending an IndigenEYEZ youth retreat during the 2018 northern summer Canadian Gulf Islands on Cortez Island at the Hollyhock Retreat Center; I was attending the venerable Hollyhock Summer Gathering.

Mana Havens are designed to be an Agile Fractal Grid AFG "substation" / hub with gigabit data communications. Mana Haven Meshnets™ are designed to be implemented and operated by a local coop, serving residents and visitors as broadly as possible in the communities.

Krusheska was across all this in the context of Puerto Rico at the time we met. Those who would love to contribute to this, please proceed to self-organize here to evolve the overall pattern and then spawn threads to localize as our we implement the design.

The overall pattern is ideally synthesized from best practices already implemented in communities. To start, please post reference links with succinct excerpts.

In appreciation, Bob.

BBA

Bob Beth AHA-NZ Thu 30 Jul 2020 12:47PM

For technical and system administrator types who have Linux understanding, here’s a very good article in Medium about setting up a leaderless meshnet

https://medium.com/swlh/setting-up-an-ad-hoc-mesh-network-with-raspberry-pi-3b-using-batman-adv-1c08ee565165

BBA

Bob Beth AHA-NZ Sat 8 Aug 2020 3:08AM

As reported by Motherboard Tech by Vice 2018 January, a new study out of Harvard once again makes it clear why incumbent ISPs like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T are so terrified by the idea of communities building their own broadband networks.

According to the new study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, community-owned broadband networks provide consumers with significantly lower rates than their private-sector counterparts.

BBA

Bob Beth AHA-NZ Mon 17 Aug 2020 6:17AM

This Washington Post 16 August 2020 article points out that in the US there is still a lot of lack of high speed Internet connectivity.

"For all the talk of Generation Z’s Internet savvy, a stunning number of young people are locked out of virtual classes because they lack high-speed Internet service at home. In 2018, nearly 17 million children lived in homes without high-speed Internet, and more than 7 million did not have computers at home, according to a report prepared by a coalition of civil rights and education groups that analyzed census data for that year."

KQ

Krusheska Quiros Mon 24 Aug 2020 5:47PM

I am grateful and proud to have shared thoughts that inspired Bob. Social equality, resilience and ultimately, the thriving autonomy of communities that have been displaced to the margins can most definitely benefit from the use of meshed networks.
Here are a few resources and case studies...

*The meshed network in Detroit and the Technology Stewards program have been running for several years now, bringing internet access to three communities in that city and supporting community members in their self-empowerment. https://youtu.be/1B0u6nvcTsI

*In Mexico, community owned meshed networks and cellphone networks have had a huge impact in indigenous communities... https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2018/03/community-networks-mexico-resources/

*The mesh in the community of José de La Quintana in Argentina, is an great example of tech stewardship from within a community, https://youtu.be/DcOAePVwafs.

During the process of generating my plan to work with some communities in Puerto Rico to build community meshed networks, I had the opportunity to travel this past February to Cuetzalan, Mexico to complete a program organized through the International Telecommunications Union Academy (https://academy.itu.int/home) for tech stewards working in and with indigenous and remote communities. Through five online courses and a face-to-face gathering, the program focused on using tech as another tool to address needs identified by the community and to bring dreams to reality. The planning and imagining involve deep conversations with the community. This cuts off the trend of imposing technology on communities by outsiders who more often than not are not familiar with the dynamics of the community nor their decision making process.


I am inspired by the work taking place in several indigenous communities in Mexico for their emphasis in the community-focused approach and by the work of Alter Mundi (https://altermundi.net/) and other groups around the world when in comes to the tech side. For the project in Puerto Rico, I hope to be using Libre routers (https://librerouter.org/) which is a project by Alter Mundi.

BBA

Bob Beth AHA-NZ Tue 25 Aug 2020 1:36AM

Thank you Krusheska for adding all these helpful pointers. I love seeing how much progress you've made with all this in the two years since we met. Look forward to collaborating even more as we find a culturally sensitive and helpful way to introduce stellar digital connectivity to underserved and marginalized communities. I really enjoyed our catch up call and appreciate you capturing so much of it here so that we can readily share it broadly. Be well, Bob.

MT

Maxx Tondu Sun 22 May 2022 7:17PM

An Off-Grid Starlink User Achieves "Infinite WiFi" with 300 Watts of Solar - Interesting Engineering

https://interestingengineering.com/starlink-user-achieves-infinite-wifi